leaded.

"Jealous of a Hun?" answered Leonard, knocking the ashes from his pipe.
"No." But he squeezed her hand somewhat viciously in return. "Not a bit.
Stop wriggling! Not a bit. When did you see him again?"

"Not for a long time. One day I came home and on the hall table was a
gold sword and a gold helmet with an eagle crest. Maybe I heard his
voice in the parlor, maybe I didn't. Anyway, I put the helmet on my head
and took the sword out of the scabbard. Oh, wasn't it shiny! I was
admiring myself in the mirror when he came out.--Stop whistling,
Leonard, or I won't go on.

"He was dressed all in blue and gold, and he wore a gray cape lined with
red, and oh, he looked like a picture in a fairy book, I can tell you,
and he just stood there and stared at me. And he said, in a very low
voice, 'I didn't dare to kiss you under the mistletoe.' And I wanted to
say something, but couldn't think of anything because he wouldn't take
his eyes away; and then Frau Mueller came out and said 'Good-bye' to him
with great formality. And afterward she said it was very _unziemlich_ to
talk to a young officer alone in the hall, and, oh, I don't know--a
whole lot of things I didn't listen to."

"And of course that only fanned your ardor and you continued to meet?"
prompted Leonard.

He lighted a pipe and stuck it in the corner of his mouth, and never
took his smiling eyes off Marjorie's thin little face, all animated in
the dusk.

"Of course we met, but only on the avenue, when we girls were walking in
a long line, dressed alike, two by two, guarded by dragons of teachers.
But I'd lie awake every night and think of all kinds of things--his
look, and the way his sword clanked against his boots. And twice I saw
him at the opera, looking at me from one of the boxes filled with
officers. You can't think how big I felt having him notice me--and you
can't think how beautiful I thought he was. Little thrills ran up and
down my spine every time I looked at him. Is that the way you felt when
you looked at your silly actresses?"

"Maybe," said Leonard, grinning with the corner of his mouth unoccupied
by the pipe, and staring out into the shadowy darkness. "Was that all?"

They were drawing near to London.

"Mostly," answered Marjorie, fingering the buttons on Leonard's sleeve.
"Last time I saw him it was in the garden on the same bench in the sun.
He came over the fence, and he told me that his regiment had been
ordered to Berlin the next